


Promises

by The_Lionheart



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, I feel like there is room for a Nick-POV sequel but i want to see how this season of AOS ends, M/M, Memory Loss, Non-Chronological, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 17:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lionheart/pseuds/The_Lionheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"On my affections alone I'll cross,<br/>then stare into the eyes of Death Eternal,<br/>no matter what the cost."<br/>~ <i>Eurydice (Don't Follow)</i>, Cruxshadows</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dazzledfirestar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dazzledfirestar/gifts).



  
_I tried to bear my loss, I could not bear it._   


 

There is a gaping, sucking ache in his chest, and Nick is cupping the sides of his face.

"Eyes on me," Nick commands, and Phil wants to smile. It's very like him, he thinks, to try to exert sheer force of will over death. Maybe one day it'll work. He tells Nick it's okay, because it is. Phil knows Captain Rogers- they've only just met, but Phil has a doctorate in American History with Steve's name on it. Phil knows Tony Stark, too- even if you don't count quiet years of monitoring Stark Industries out of prudence, the last three or so years have taught him more about Tony than a decade of surveillance. He knows how this is going to play out. The dumb shit who thought he could play God has made it personal.

There is no one Rogers and Stark won't hunt down once they have a personal stake in it. Phil kind of feels honored that this is his last testament on this earth. Would you know my name, Phil thinks groggily, if I saw you in Heaven? But he can't bring himself to say the words, and it's a damn shame.

"I was promised more," Nick says raggedly, on the edge of Phil's hearing. "We were promised more than this." 

Phil made a promise once, too. He thinks he broke it. He hopes no one holds that against him.

There's more that Phil could say, but the words don't come. It's quiet, now. It's peaceful, and warm. Nick's kneeling between his legs and that's alright. 

There are far worse ways to go.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

He is twenty-eight years old and somebody hasn't told Carpasia that the Cold War's over. If he lives through this, he thinks, he's going back to school. He deserves that much. 

It's nobody's first mission, but it's the first one the three of them get to work together. It's not fair, Phil thinks. His two best friends are engaged in a prankwar and they both have sworn him to act as a neutral party, and really? All he wants to do is shave Nick's eyebrows off.

He does ask, and Director Carter explicitly states that he is not allowed to do anything that might make Nick unattractive. He asks about _that,_ and the Director tells him it's about Nick's mission, and that nobody likes the mission. She looks sorry when she says it, although he doesn't know why.

He asks Nick about it, and Nick frowns and tells him that he's an asshole for wanting to shave his eyebrows off.

"That's not the point," Phil says mildly. "I want to know why I can't do it."

"Other than my god-given right to have eyebrows, motherfucker?" Nick asks, and Phil waggles his own eyebrows in response. Nick frowns at him, but when he looks away Phil realizes that maybe he's not frowning at him at all.

"I just have to do this thing- James Bond some princess or something," he says gruffly. "Apparently she has a type."

"Girl has good taste," Phil says, and his stomach feels weird. It's probably the highly suspicious seafood Melinda fed them for lunch while she ate a small sandwich. In fact, Phil's pretty sure that she was totally laughing at them both for eating it. They should have known better.

He's still not sure why Director Carter looked sorry when she told him Nick had a mission he wouldn't like. 

Ambassador D'Alexis is a nice girl, he supposes. For an extremist revolutionary, anyway. Phil thinks she's probably very pretty. She's really not his type at all.

Nick doesn't come home to their makeshift base that night, and Phil and Melinda hang out and listen to Eric Clapton.

"This is the best mission I've ever been on," she tells him, grinning.

"Yeah," Phil agrees, but his mind keeps going back to Nick in a tuxedo, Nick's eyes peering over the topmost edge of his fake glasses. Melinda watches him for a moment, her lips quirking into a quick little smile.

"Nick looks like a huge nerd with those glasses, though, doesn't he?" she asks slyly.

"Yeah, he really does," Phil sighs, and she nudges his arm.

"I bet he was a giant nerd in high school, too," Melinda prompts. "You know he went to college to be a mathematician? Fucking nerd."

"Oh wow," Phil says, looking at the ceiling. His whole face feels hot and his throat and chest feel uncomfortably tight. "He probably wore bowties and, like. Cardigans. Suspenders. _High-water pants_."

"You're so stupid," Melinda says fondly, punching his arm. "Why are you so stupid, Phil?"

"You're such an asshole," Phil counters, rubbing his arm. "Why are you such an asshole, Melinda?"

"Because," she says, throwing a fork at him. He catches it in midair. "I've known you guys for four years, and you've never not been in love with him."

Phil stares at her in silence for a minute, trying to find it in him to deny it. 

"Don't tell anybody," he says instead. 

I know I must be strong and carry on, Eric Clapton sings, 'cause I know I don't belong here in Heaven.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

It's hot in Tahiti and he spends most of his time naked, but Nick never shows up. There is a string of unmemorable massuesses and therapists and nutritionists and coaches, and his partner of eighteen years hasn't come by once to see him.

He tries to feel bad about it. He tries to feel anything, and he can't. Mostly he feels sleepy, all the time.

In his dreams there is a woman in black and green, a mask covering half her face. The half he can see is young and smooth. In his dreams she takes his hand and walks him a little more out of the darkness and cold. Her voice is familiar to him. He doesn't know why that is- if he could sit down and think he's sure he would remember, but they do nothing but walk. If he could ask Nick, Nick would tell him. He just needs to find Nick, is all.

The hand he holds is wrinkled and dry, like an old woman. The hand he doesn't hold is nothing but bone. 

"Stop looking for him," she tells him every night. "He's not there." 

Every night Phil stops to glance behind, sure that he'll see Nick at his back. Every night the woman in the mask sighs, and her breath smells like a dessicated corpse.

Every morning Phil wakes up exhausted in Tahiti. He thinks he prefers the dreams, although by morning's light he can no longer remember anything about them, except that he could feel.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

"You're an idiot," Nick grins at him.

"Oh, I'm the idiot now?" Phil asks mildly. "That's funny, see, because unlike some people, I don't-" 

He never gets to finish his sentence or reveal what it is that he doesn't and that Nick does. It's 1996 and they're coming up on the second anniversary of the Thing They Don't Talk About Yet, and Nick has to spend it in a hospital bed, the jerk. Phil doesn't get to finish his sentence because Nick pulls him down for a brief kiss, and Phil laces his fingers with Nick's over the thin hospital sheet.

"You need to brush your teeth," Phil whispers into his mouth, giving him a smooch on the end of his nose. "I'll go get your toothbrush."

"If you really loved me, you wouldn't give a fuck," Nick complains, but he's smiling and looking more than a little smug. His eyes are warm and dark and Phil will miss gazing into them one day.

"Agent Miller's going to show up in about ten minutes," Phil tells him. "She's just going to debrief you."

"Come back with food," Nick grumbles.

"I always do," Phil protests.

"No, you always come back with crap. I don't want vending machine donuts, Coulson, I want actual food," Nick commands.

"Oh, sure, let me just hide a plate of Mom's lasagna under my jacket, the doctors who gave you your strict diet won't notice that _at all_ ," Phil replies. "Sweet or salty, babe?"

"I'm literally wasting away," Nick says, raising an arm.

"Peanut butter cups it is," Phil says flatly.

"Fuck you, M&M's," Nick counters gloomily.

"You're such a brat," Phil grins. He digs Nick's toothbrush out of a bag and drops it and some mouthwash in Nick's lap. "I'll see you tonight."

Phil does run into Agent Miller later that evening, as she's leaving Nick's room. She gives him a surprised hug- not really appropriate, considering he's her boss, but it's not like his relationship with Nick is all that appropriate either.

"Hey, good to see you alive and well," she says.

"You too, Layla," he says, bemused. "Is Agent Fury done for the night?"

"Yeah, Director Fury's good," she says, before blinking. "Agent Fury, I mean. Wow, did I say that? Sorry, I get- sorry."

"Don't let him hear you say that, he might start getting ideas," Phil jokes. "Can you imagine Nick in charge of SHIELD?"

"You'd get custody of Lola, for one," Agent Miller says, and Phil's eyes widen.

"Ooh, tell him to start his bid for power, then. Right away. Yesterday, even," he says. "Hey, have you seen the models for the mobile command centers? Pretty cool, right?"

"They'll be outdated by the year 2004 but, like, sure. They look awesome," she says, rolling her eyes. Phil frowns a little but she's already on her way before he can tell her that outdated isn't the same as _useless_.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

It's 2004 and the airbusses are being phased out, Nick is in his lap and Jakob is dead. There is a smoking wound where Nick's eye should be, and Phil is screaming for anyone to help, anyone at all. This wasn't supposed to happen, Phil thinks. Jake and Nick are brothers, brothers don't do this, brothers don't kill each other, this isn't supposed to happen. The world goes cold and flat and quiet as they wait for help, Nick's pulse fluttering against Phil's fingertips.

There's something wrong about the medic who comes, something off. Her ink-black hair trails off into greasy cobwebs at the corners of his vision, and there's a plain surgical mask over her mouth. One eye is a bright, vivid green, and the other is a milky, sightless orb.

"Please," Phil begs her. "We need-"

"I know what you need, Philip Coulson," she says, kneeling in front of him. Her hands are gloved, and she smells like death. "Would you believe that you have something I need, as well?"

"Just save him," Phil pleads. "Just save him."

"I will," she promises. "I need both of you to head a force that will destroy a threat that will one day come to you. He is powerful beyond your comprehension and undying- although not, as it turns out, unkillable."

"What?" Phil asks, and she looks hard at him.

"When the time comes, you will raise the army that defeats this Titan. He seeks to make me his concubine with offerings of the dead, and he has already destroyed worlds. It must end. You must end it."

"Right," Phil says, because there's literally no other choice. He'll do anything he has to.

"You will also promise me this," she says, and her eyes crinkle in what he thinks is a smirk. "When my father comes to subjugate your people in the name of the Titan, send him home to me. Do not release him back to the shining lands. He belongs at home, with his children. Send him to me. Do you understand?"

The gloved hand gripping his forearm is bone-hard, and Phil nods.

"Then I can promise you both long and happy lives," she says, and Nick wakes up with a choking gasp.

Things are different, after. Phil forgets details first, until he finds himself staring at an incident report with no clear memory of how Nick survived or who helped them. Nick remembers, but he refuses to speak of that time. There are things, he says, he shouldn't have to remember or think about yet. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

"I wouldn't normally do this," the woman in his dreams says, once. "You broke your promise to me. I should let you linger and rot."

"Why are you helping me?" he asks, and she gives him a speculative look.

"Because," she says. "There are other favors. You'd be surprised what the living can offer Death."

"What did Nick do?" he asks slowly. He feels a presence at his back, and turns to look, sure it's him. 

He wakes up in Tahiti and puts a hand on the knotted scar on his chest.

I want my partner back, he thinks. 

"What did I eat yesterday?" he asks instead, and the masseuse smiles down at him.

"You have a strict diet, Mr. Coulson. Your Nicholas left strict instructions- no donuts," she tells him. Phil feels himself smile, and that night he doesn't dream at all. He wakes up refreshed, in Tahiti, and the sunlight on his face is like a promise. 

"I don't understand how I survived," Phil says that afternoon to the latest physical therapist, a willowy youngster named Leah. "I don't understand how I could have possibly lived through that."

"Everything happens for a reason, Mr. Coulson," she says crisply, sounding for a moment much older than she looks. "I promise."

 

  
_You are the debtor who is always paid._   



End file.
